As everyone is now aware, a gunman went on a rampage at a school in the U.S., killing more than 20 and mentally scarring a nation and a world.  The question then becomes how are we, as Kadampas, able to relate to this in a positive way.

The difficulty with events such as these is it just seems wrong to maintain pure view saying that it is all emanated.  If we are not careful, we wind up sounding like that one Senate candidate that said a rape is God’s will, so therefore God is a rapist.  Of course there are other forces at play – delusions – and this is what they lead to.  Delusions drove the gunman and delusions drive the angry response.  Events like this are a powerful reminder of where delusions lead.  Seeing where the path of delusions lead we realize the folly of even going down them a little bit in our own life.

As Kadampas we make a distinction between the person and their delusions.  Just as those children were the victim of the gunman, so too the gunman was a victim of his delusions.  Our normal reaction is we do not want to generate compassion for the gunman so we resist this.  But we need to check our own behavior, and if we do so honestly we will have to admit that the more our mind is overrun by our delusions, the more we lose control over our actions.  How many times have we all gotten angry, said or done something hurtful, and then later regretted it?  How many times have we been seized by attachment to somebody we find attractive and found ourselves engaging in all sorts of stupid behavior even though we know it just creates more problems?  What will now follow in the press is a debate about whether the gunman was insane or not.  I’m sorry, the answer is obvious, only an insane person would do something like this.

Saying somebody is the victim of their delusions does not, however, absolve them of the personal responsibility for their actions.  In each moment we have a choice to follow our delusions or to not.  Sometimes the choice is a very hard one to make, such as maintaining one’s commitment to never smoke again, but we do have this choice.  So we are responsible for our actions, no doubt.  But if we have never learned that it is even possible to say no to our delusions and we have never learned methods for how to do so and we have no history or habit built up of doing so, it is not difficult to see how our delusions can overwhelm us.  Look at Gen-la Samden.  Here is somebody who clearly knew the Dharma, was a very sincere practitioner, very close to enlightenment no doubt, yet he too was overwhelmed by the trickery of delusions.  So there is no contradiction between acknowledging delusions render us uncontrolled and maintaining that we must each assume personal responsibility for the continuum of our actions.

On this basis, a Kadampa response to events such as these begins with compassion for the victims, the families and the community.  But it also extends to the gunman and to those who now want revenge on him.  The gunman is no doubt in hell now.  Rejoicing in this only guarantees that we will soon join him.  A Kadampa wants noone in hell and wants all in a pure land.

So the question then arises, how can we maintain pure view of events such as this.  We can do so only internally, not externally.  Pure view is a personal thing informed by an accumulated wisdom of knowing how to look at tragedy in a beneficial way.  From a conventional point of view, this is horrible, plain and simple.  Conventionally, we must acknowledge that.  But horrible things contain within them powerful lessons about why it is better to be pure and good.  Pure view does not mean that we say horrible appearances are perfect  from their own side, rather it means we know how to internally receive perfect benefit from whatever appears.  We know how to learn something pure and perfect from even the most horrible appearances.

Nothing is emanated from its own side, but it becomes “emanated” depending upon our view.  With faith and wisdom we can derive spiritual lessons from tragedies and therefore use them as powerful motors pushing us along our path to the final solution of enlightenment for all.  We may feel “guilty” about receiving benefit from something so bad, but this is not correct.  In fact, we can say the only way to truly honor the dead and make their loss have meaning is if we use it for something good.  If we don’t, then it is only tragedy.

We all know the story of the guy who saved the fish by putting him in a nearby pond, but then that fish ate all the other fish in the pond, and when the owners of the pond found out what happened they killed the fish that was saved.  The moral of the story is it is not enough to just be compassionate, we need to have wisdom knowing whether our help is actually helpful and beneficial.  When we look at most of the challenges in the world today, how to respond to them often turns to this question of when and how to help so that our help doesn’t make things worse.

If we look at the debate between conservatives and liberals in the U.S., this is the fundamental question.  When we look at the debate on how to respond to the Eurozone crisis, this is the fundamental question.  When we look at the debates about how to raise responsible children, this is the fundamental question.  Therefore, understanding the nature of the problem and having an answer to this question is very important.

Imagine you are confronted with somebody who has a big problem because they have made wrong choices (be it Greece, a rebellious teenager, or people failing to succeed in the modern world).  How should we help this person?  One extreme is creating a moral hazard.  If we just solve the other person’s problems for them, then they never face the consequences of their wrong choices and are therefore never forced to learn to make correct choices.  If we always clean up their mess, they face no consequences and will know we will always be there to clean up their mess, so they will continue to make wrong choices again and again.  The other extreme is letting them drown.  If the harmful consequences of their wrong decisions are so severe that experiencing them actually decreases their capacity to be able to solve their own problems even if they choose to do so, then letting them drown and face the music condemns them.  They will likely give up trying because they know even if they did, they will still fail, and they will fall farther and farther down (blaming you along the way).

So what is the middle way?  It is show solidarity for capacity building.  This proceeds in several steps.

First, you need to distinguish between problems within their control versus problems outside of their control.  Ultimately, of course, from a karmic perspective everything that happens to us is the karmic result of our past actions, so you could say that everything is within our control.  But conventionally speaking, this is not the case in the short run.  In the short run, certain karmic seeds have already ripened and there is nothing we can do about it.  These are things that are outside of our control.  For example, if we have been born into a poor and dysfunctional family, karmically this is of course the result of our past actions, but for purposes of our life that karma has already ripened, and now we have to deal with it.  For problems outside of somebody’s control, as bodhisattvas there is no fault in doing whatever we can to mitigate against whatever external problems the person is facing all while holding them responsible for what they do have control over.  While the external circumstance is something they might not have control over, we should help the other person not use that external circumstance as an excuse to not try for the things they do have control over.

For the things that are within the control of the other person, the next step is to identify whether the other person is trying their best to dig themselves out of the hole they have fallen into.  How will we know if they are trying their best?  Usually, we just know.  We can tell.  There is no magic formula here, just go with your gut instinct and request wisdom blessings to know.

If the other person is trying their best, then you focus your help on equipping them with the tools and capacity to solve their own problems.  This is the classic, give a man a baguette you feed him for a day; teach a man to bake his own baguette’s, you feed him for life.  For a country, this may mean helping them rebuild their administrative and institutional capacity; for an unemployed person, this may mean retraining them in employable skills; for a struggling teenager, this may mean getting them a tutor.  But while they are retraining, yes, it is necessary to also feed them baguettes!  You can’t just teach him how to bake if he starves while he is learning to do so, you also need to feed him while he is learning.  Teaching people to stand on their own two feet, and indeed to enter into a virtuous cycle of self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating personal growth is the final goal.  How far should we go with this?  All the way to taking them to enlightenment.

If the other person is not trying their best, then things become more complicated.  The first thing you need to do is stop making excuses for them.  You need to refuse to assent to their narrative that all of their problems are because of other people or some external circumstance.  You need to help them identify which areas they do have control over, and you need to make very clear that they are responsible for those areas and if they fail in those areas, they have nobody to blame but themselves.  If you doing this fairly and with skill, inside they will know you are right even if externally they would never admit it to you.

The second thing you need to do is give them a warning.  You say, “look, I will stand by you to help you develop the skills and capacity you need to dig yourself out of your hold, but you need to do all the work – I can’t do it for you.  But if you choose to not do so, this is what the natural consequence of what your bad choice will be…”  Then you just explain to them how the world works and what will happen to them naturally in the world if they don’t do what they need to do.  For the country, this could mean them going bankrupt.  For the unemployed worker, this could mean them finding themselves on the street.  For the rebellious teenager, this could mean failing to graduate with all of the consequences.  You give them one more chance – saying next time you are not going to bail them out if, after your explaining to them the consequences, they continue to make the wrong choices.

Then, if they nonetheless make the wrong choice, you need to then not bail them out fully.  You bail them out only enough so that their capacity is not permanently destroyed by the consequences, but nothing more.  You don’t need to punish them, the world will do that for you naturally.  When they face the consequences of their bad choices, they will kick and scream and blame you, but this is just how the world works and the only way they will learn is by getting burned.  Again, I am not saying let them drown, but I am saying only prevent them from doing so completely.  Throughout this time, you should make clear that your offer of helping them dig themselves out always stands.

Allowing them to sufer the consequences of their wrong choices will often mean you yourself will have to experience some negative consequences, such as them blaming you or seeing them sufer or perhaps when they fall, they bring you down with them.  These consequences you just need to accept as the price of you helping the other person by not helping them (unless doing so destroys your capacity permanently, at which point the calculation is different).

If, despite facing the negative consequences of their wrong choices, the person still does not decide to start trying their best to dig themselves out, then there is little else you can do than pray for them.  You should continue to protect them from such extreme consequences that their facing them would permanently destroy their capacity to ever dig themselves out, but it may mean you having to watch them waste their life.  You should never stop requsting Dorje Shugden to arrage whatever conditions are perfect for them to attain enlightenment.  Request him to bless their minds so that whatever they are experiencing becomes a cause of their enlightenment.  Your offer to help them grow in capacity should always stand, but it might not be until future lives that you can execute on it.  During all of this time, you should request wisdom blessings to try better understand how you can break through to the other person, but nonetheless accept that at present there are things also beyond your control.  You can explain the way, but they must make the journey themselves.

Your turn:  Share some wisdom you have learned about knowing when and how to help others.

Most of the problems and frustrations we have in our life come as a result of our attitude towards change.  The cycle is usually some change happens, we become upset about the things we lost in the change and we develop aversion towards some of the new things that have come about as a result of the change.  Then, usually after some drama and a fair amount of time, we come to let go of what we have lost, we come to accept our new inconveniences, and we even come to discover some new good things in our changed environment.  Just when we get comfortable and happy with our new situation, some new change will come about and the whole cycle starts over again.  This cycle occurs with basically everything:  our friends, our jobs, our kids, our surroundings, our enjoyments, etc.

For our family, this cycle primarily plays itself out in the form of being sent to new postings.  Every two to three years, we will be sent someplace new in the world and have to start our lives all over again.  But this cycle started long before I became a diplomat.  In the last 21 years, I have moved a total of 18 times!  Not always to different cities or countries, but to different homes or contexts.  I never seem to remain…

In reality, this is the natural state of affairs in samsara.  Everything is constantly changing.  This is a fact of life, whether we accept/like it or not.  Some people use all of their energy trying to resist this inevitable change.  They do everything they can to keep everything the same.  When we approach life this way, we begin to fear everything, view everything as a threat, and we increasingly enscone ourselves in an artificially static world.  It eventually grows harder and harder to hold back the tide of change, our mental strain grows and grows, we become increasingly grumpy, dissatisfied and picky.  We get stuck in our habits and can’t imagine life any other way.  The radius of our world gets smaller and smaller, the information and new perspectives we become exposed to narrower and narrower, until eventually we find ourselves in a single chair in an informational echo chamber of things confirming what we already believe.  We become completely stuck, enmeshed in what is for all practical purposes a karmic straight jacket.  To do anything out of our normal routines becomes inconceivably hard.  But even then, like it or not, change comes – and for us, it becomes all the more traumatic and wrenching. This is no way to live a life!

Since change is inevitable, instead of resisting it, we need to learn to embrace and adapt to it.  We should view each major change in our life as if we have died and been reborn in a new life.  We take from our old life the lessons we have learned, and we enter our new life with a mind eager to discover what is around the corner.  Each new change will force us to grow in some way, to change ourselves, to learn how to be equally happy in any and all circumstances.  The reality is all worlds, all lives are equally empty.  So no matter what new world or circumstance we find ourselves in, we have an absolutely equal chance of being perfectly happy.  This is simply a fact.  Our job as a Kadampa in this ever-changing world is to gain the ability to be equally happy everywhere.  Each new world is an opportunity to expand the envelope of our capacity to transform new and different circumstances into something we consider to be “ideal.”  As we tell our kids, “every situation is equally good, just in different ways.”

This is also where reliance upon Dorje Shugden becomes so important.  Through relying upon him, we can know with absolute certainty that whatever changes have happened in our life are exactly what we need.  We can know that our new circumstance is exactly perfect.  Knowing this, our only remaining task is to realize how and why.  If we don’t know, we just request wisdom blessings from him that he reveal to us how and why our circumstances are indeed perfect.  We might not get an answer right away, but before the end, it will all fall into place and we will realize how amazingly skilful he is in shepparding us to enlightenment.

It will sometimes be hard, it will sometimes take longer than we would like, but through embracing this task of learning to be equally happy in every new situation we find ourselves in, we will develop the ability to always be happy.  From this, an enormous confidence comes which knows we will be able to take this ability with us in life after life.  It is not enough to just be happy in this life, we need to learn how to be happy in every life, life after life.  Learning to embrace and adapt to change is, therefore, not only the key to happiness in this life, but to happiness in all our future lives.

Your turn:  Describe some change that you have resisted.  How did you eventually learn to adapt to it?

There are so many instructions on the Kadampa path it is very easy to lose sight of what is important or how it all fits together.  I believe it was Kenneth Galbraith, one of history’s most famous economists, that said there is no concept too complex that cannot be explained in two words; and that there are no two words you cannot give a discourse on for two hours!  So if we are to look at all of the Kadampa path and need to reduce it down to two words, those two words would be “guru yoga.”  All of the path can be understood as one single practice, namely guru yoga, and everything else is in support of that.

The logic is simple:  the guru is already an enlightened being, so instead of reinventing the wheel and going through the laborious process of building from scratch within ourselves every quality of a Buddha we simply import the final product within our mental continuum.  We simply replace the basis of our self from being the ordinary, deluded being we currently are with the enlightened body, speech and mind of the guru.  There is one activity on the path:  changing the basis of imputation for our I from our ordinary self to that of the guru.

Here, guru does not merely mean the external appearing form of our Spiritual Guide, rather, here guru means all of the different levels of the guru.  There is the external spiritual guide who teaches us, writes books, grants empowerments, etc.  The practice with the external spiritual guide is to learn and to emulate.  The external spiritual guide introduces us to the internal spiritual guide who has many many levels and aspects.  One meaning of a “Buddhist” is “an inner being.”  So it follows that a Buddha is a being that lives within the realm of our mind.  The guru, by definition, is the synthesis of all of these Buddhas.

First we are usually introduced to Je Tsongkhapa, who we understand is the same mental continuum of Buddha Shakyamuni.  We are introduced to his three principal qualities:  wisdom, compassion and spiritual power which assume the forms of Manjushri, Avalokitehshvara and Vajrapani respectively.  We are also introduced to his Sangha.  The principal function of Sangha is to arrange the conditions for our practice.  The inner sangha assumes the form of Dorje Shugden and his retinue.  While by nature Dorje Shugden is the wisdom Buddha Manjushri, he accomplishes the function of inner Sangha within our mind.  This is why he appears with the Sangha jewel in the field of merit.

Through learning from and relying upon these inner emanations we are eventually introduced to the Guru in the aspect of the Yidam, which in the context of the Kadampa tradition assumes the form of Heruka and Vajrayogini.  The Yidam is like our ultimate role model.  The Yidam is like our new car!  Our main practice is to let go of our old, ordinary car of our body and mind and instead to hop into and identify with our new spiritual all-performance vehicle of the Yidam.  We basically adopt the body and mind of the Yidam as our own.  But then we go even deeper.  Just as we went inside our ordinary mind and met certain Buddhas, when we go inside the Yidam’s mind, we discover new Buddhas assuming different aspects and we start the whole process over again.  These Buddhas assume the form of the seed letters of the principal and supporting deities (the body mandala) of the Yidam.  We then do the same thing of coming to identify with the seed letters, in particular the nada. What is inside the nada?  The Dharmakaya, the final nature of the guru, the ocean where all enlightened waters find their final destination.

All throughout this process of admiring, emulating and finally identifying with the different levels and aspects of the guru we need positive mental energy (merit) we need to remove obstructions (purification) and we need to the strength to make these transitions (blessings).  These three are our preparatory practices.  We need to have the motivation to become the guru, in all of his forms, so that we can then liberate all beings – this is bodhichitta.  We need to realize that our self does not inherently adhere to our ordinary body and mind, these are the meditations on the emptiness of the self, body and mind.

Viewed in this way, we come to understand that in reality the entire path is guru yoga, and all of the other practices support that main practice.

Your turn:  Take some difficult situation in your life, now view it as an emanation of your guru for your practice.  How does your mind change towards your difficult situation when you view it in this way?

As Kadampa’s who realize we have a precious human life, it is relatively obvious that we should focus 100% of our attention and effort on practicing the Dharma.  If we truly realized how we have been trapped in the self-imposed insane asylum of our delusion-created samsara since beginningless time and that by some miracle of miracles we have found the doorway out, not only for ourselves but for all of our fellow patients, and we realized that we could lose at any moment this opportunity to get out through either become distracted by the shiny things inside samsara or by simply dying unexpectedly, we would realize it is really foolish to do anything other than concentrate on practicing Dharma 100% of the time.  If we genuinely realize the truth of our circumstance, this is the only sensible conclusion one can draw.

Our biggest problem is grasping at a fixed conception of what it practically means to concentrate on practicing Dharma 100% of the time.  We have such a narrow conception that this only means renouncing our friends, family, jobs and normal lives and instead moving into a center, becoming ordained and doing pujas, attending classes and working for the center all day.  Then, when we realize that practically we can’t live such a life due to the other karmic constraints we face (such as responsibility to our family, student loan debt to repay, retirement to plan for, etc.), we start to become frustrated with our life, we start to view our family, friends, finances and jobs as obstacles to our spiritual life, and paradoxically, the more we meditate on our precious human life and our impending death, the more miserable, neurotic, stressed out and frustrated we become.

Just to be clear, there is of course nothing wrong with somebody who dedicates their life to formal practice in a center.  Such practitioners are to be praised and appreciated, their lives rejoiced in.  But we shouldn’t mistakenly think that this is the only way to concentrate on practicing Dhama 100% of the time.  Since every life is equally empty, every life can equally be transformed into 100% Dharma practice.  In every situation, we should always remain focused exclusively on the Dharma, but as revealed through our life. 

Every life situation, one way or the other, reveals the truth of the Dharma.  This is true for the lives of the lowest beggar to the highest king.  If we trust that this is true and we keep our mental attention focused exclusively on how this is true, we will quite naturally discover in every moment a hidden gem that reveals to us the truth and meaning of the Dharma.  We will come to understand how the life we have, with all of its challenges and constraints, is actually a “gift from the Gods” (or more specifically, a gift from our Dharma Protector), and is, for us, the most perfectly tailored spiritual life we could possibly imagine.  Instead of being frustrated and discouraged, we will be inspired and energized to probe deeper into the mystery and magic that is our life.

If we only relate to our life on its most surface levels, we will quickly become bored and feel as if our life is empty of meaning.  We need to get fully involved in every activity of our life, no matter how mundane or no matter how challenging.  Life is to be lived fully – only in doing so can we derive the maximum spiritual benefit from the opportunities we have been given and that we have created for ourselves.  So paradoxically, it is by fully engaging yourself in your personal and professional lives – while maintaining laser-like focus on how the Dharma is revealed through your life –  that you can discover the deeper spritiual lessons your life has to offer.  You then wake up each day like a joyful adventurer who can’t wait to see what’s in store for today.  With this approach, you can be both 100% engaged in your family and professional lives while remaining 100% engaged in your Dharma practice.

To really take this to the next level, we must also move beyond the simple mechanical and work-horse like aspects of getting on with what needs to be done.  We need to develop a deep sense of marvel at the magical beauty of the life our Dharma Protector has created for us.  As an economist by training, I have rececently come to realize I have a very poorly developed sense of appreciation of beauty.  I arrogantly dismiss such sentiments as a waste of time.  I couldn’t be more wrong.  Instead of always being in such a hurry (which I always am), I need to learn to take the time to appreciate the beauty, elegance and sheer genius of the conditions that have been arranged for me.  I can’t imagine cities more beautiful than Paris and Rome.  But is we develop a sense of appreciation of the spiritual beauty that is our life, we will discover that we are actually abiding in the most spectacular city of enlightenment – right where we are in the life that we have.  I don’t believe we can truly reach the pure land in this life before we die without developing the mind of a spiritual artist – someone who can transform their life into spiritual art.

Cultivating these perspectives takes time and effort, but doing so brings a great joy and satisfaction.  Our life becomes a fully experienced Joyful Path of Good Fortune!

Your turn:  Describe how some major condition in your life can be viewed as Dorje Shugden’s greatest gift to your practice.

The dynamic of the physical universe is largely governed by the law of gravity.  The greater the mass, the greater the gravitational pull on other masses.  The same is true of the economy (economic gravity) and politics (political gravity).  Likewise, spiritual progress and development is largely governed by the law of spiritual gravity.  When you think of the great spiritual masters of this world, such as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, Moses, Ghandi, etc., you can see that these beings have tremendous spiritual gravity which pulls the beings of this world in a virtuous direction.  Even those these beings have long ago passed away (physically, at least) their legacy in this world (or as Shantideva would call it, their reliquary) still remains drawing beings into the orbit of these great masters, pulling them in towards enlightenment.

As bodhisattvas, our goal is to lead all beings to enlightenment.  Our ability to do so depends largely on the extent of our own spiritual gravity, which in turn depends upon our own spiritual mass.  The question, then, is how do we increase the power of our spiritual gravity?

Strive to gain useful realizations for others.  Everyone has problems they want resolved.  If we have useful answers to these problems, then people will naturally be drawn to us and want to seek our advice.  Our job, then, is to gain realizations that are useful for others.  We can do this by viewing every situation in our life as emanated for us by our Spiritual Trainer, Dorje Shugden, so that we gain the realizations we need to help those beings with whom we have the karma to lead to enlightenment.  If we go through our life with the intention of gaining realizations which will be useful to others in the future, then that is what we will learn, and this intention will also create the karma for us to have opportunities to share these realizations with others in the future.  When, we don’t know.  But at some point, it is inevitable.

Improve the quantity of your quality karmic relationships.  Our ability to help others is largely dependent upon the karmic relationship we have with them.  The quality of our karmic relationships is a function of the strength of the bond, the expected duration of the relationship, the extent of mutual respect and support within the relationship, and how harmonious and healthy the relationship is.  We then should strive to increase the quantity of these quality karmic relationships.  The highest relationship we can have with another living being is a spiritual relationship.  But we need to know how to have healthy non-spiritual relationships before we will be able to have healthy spiritual relationships.  So we should view our non-spiritual personal and professional relationships as part of a continuum of our relationship with the given person that will last countless lifetimes and eventually evolve into a spiritual relationship (perhaps not in this life, but that doesn’t matter).  We manage all of our relationships through the lens of eventually becoming ones of shared enlightenment!

Cultivate smart spiritual power.  The karmic cause of power is protecting others.  Spiritual power is the ability to protect others spiritually.  We protect others spiritually by helping them gain their own spiritual wisdom.  Smart power is the optimal combination of hard and soft power.  Hard power is your actual authority over somebody, such as being a supervisor or a parent, which enables you to compel their compliance (if necessary).  Soft power is the wish of others to emulate or follow you.  Most people exercise their hard power in a way that undermines their soft power by engendering resentment in those controlled.  This arises when we use our power for our own selfish benefit as opposed to using our power to help empower those under our control.  As Hegel said, the categorical imperative is “free will must will freedom.”  We need to use our power to empower others.  When others know we are using our power to help them advance and become more empowered, they will gladly submit to our authority.  Practically speaking, the key to using hard power skillfully is “discreation within a box.”  You give people a box within which they can act freely.  If they use this freedom wisely and responsibly, you expand the size of the box.  If they use this freedom unwisely or irresponsibly, you contract the size of the box.  We increase our soft power by transforming ourselves into an example worth emulating.  The most important component of this is practicing what we preach.  Nothing undermines our example more than hypocracy.  We also need to be respectful, kind, fair, strong, flexible, decisive, light-hearted, not-arrogant, wise, successful, generous, fearless, controlled, organized, focused, have our life together and have a promising future trajectory.  For those over who we have no authority, we can only exercise soft power.  If we try exercise hard power over those who have not voluntarily submitted themselves to our authority, it usually just breeds resentment and rebellion.  True power is the ability to leave all those around us free to make their own choices and yet the choies they make are the right ones.

Create a lasting spiritual legacy.  The most important component of our spiritual legacy is the extent to which we have passed on the lineage to the next generation of practitioners.  We are all, to varying extents, holders of the lineage.  The true lineage is the continuum of authentic spiritual realizations from generation to generation.  So our task is two-fold:  first, download within our own mental continuum the realizations of those spiritually upstream in the lineage; and then second, help those spiritually downstream in the lineage acquire within themselves those realizations.  We do this primarily through our example of how we live our life, but also through our words, writings, and the institutions we leave behind.  Institutions can be formal, such as the internal rules, and informal, such as the spiritual culture of our communities.

The more spiritual mass we acquire, the greater the power of our spiritual gravity, which will then pull in more and more beings who enter into spiritual relationships with us, which will then increase our spiritual mass further in a virtuous cycle.  Eventually we become a vajra-like force of spiritual gravity – one that can never be destroyed and which, like a magic crystal, will eventually have the power to purify the entire universe, gathering and dissolving all beings and worlds into complete purity.

Your turn:  Describe some things you can do to increase your spiritual gravity.